


offer me (that deathless death)

by softshocks



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, gratuitous body worship fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27329368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softshocks/pseuds/softshocks
Summary: Grace is not earned,she remembers.It is given.When Mercedes kisses her - Edelgard, undeserving and having done everything she has in the past - she finally understands.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	offer me (that deathless death)

**Author's Note:**

> Mercigard for my kumare ces!!
> 
> My specialty is writing fics for characters who have never interacted before. Intsys you will pay for your mercigard crimes

She doesn’t remember the exact moment she realized the Church was behind all the suffering the plagued Fodlan. Sometimes it feels as if that had been ingrained in Edelgard’s psyche for as long as she could remember.

Then again, it was hard to remember things before the time they took her and took everything from her. They took her childhood away but gave her a whole new set of eyes to see the world with. 

These were eyes that saw inequality. Eyes that saw oppression. 

It took some time to reach the conclusion that perhaps all the evil that happened in this world was not the work of the Goddess. That evil came from man. That faith is a separate entity from the people who organized the church. It also took extended conversations with people from all walks of life. 

While it did not quench her anger, it fanned the flames of her drive. How couldn’t it, when she hears what this damned system has done to her family. Her peers. Her friends. 

Edelgard doesn’t even know how to begin explaining all of this to anyone. Even if Hubert knew, he’d never understand, just agrees with the majority of the things she says even if he didn’t. 

What she’d least expected is Mercedes von Martritz understanding. 

Devout, faithful Mercedes who couldn’t be more different than Edelgard. How could Mercedes possibly understand? 

(“I think that makes perfect sense, Edelgard,” she’d said, that first night they’d crossed paths when sleep both escaped them. That night Edelgard had felt a semblance of visibility even if she knew better than to trust other people or let anyone see through her. “Why wouldn’t it? The church is fallible, just like the humans who make it up are. The grace that has been gifted to us isn’t always extended to each other.”

Edelgard couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t reveal her cards just yet. She nods, agreeing, wanting to say more but maybe this friendship building between the two of them washed away into the endless sea when Mercedes finds out what she’s done and what she’s about to do.) 

But she was whip-smart, sweet, terribly understanding. The purest heart if she has ever seen one. If that was even possible. How could Edelgard possibly be surprised? 

Then again, she doesn’t really expect Mercedes in the first place. 

Mercedes, joining their house. Mercedes, being unconditionally kind, even after that night in the holy tombs, after Edelgard sparked the war, after Edelgard had taken off her mask and laid her cards on the table. Marcedes had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders as she signed orders for resources for the rebellion, asked if Edelgard wanted some water.

She didn’t deserve her kindness. Her understanding. And yet here Mercedes was, giving her all of that. 

(“Grace is not earned,” Mercedes told her, on one of those nights they cross paths during the war. A part of Edelgard sought her, and wanted to run into her, reminiscent of the times they did back in the academy. “It’s given, even if you don’t deserve it. The goddess is forgiving and kind, even if her children are not.”

The candles of the now-dilapidated cathedral casted such a lovely glow on Mercedes’ face - gentle, soft. Edelgard was afraid of touching her, but she wants to touch her. She doesn’t know where that urge had come from but as of late it’s all she’s been thinking about when she’s with Mercedes like this. 

Alone. Intimate. As if all the attention Mercedes can give to the world was for Edelgard.

 _Was this how devout people felt?_ She thought. 

Edelgard, the enemy of the Church, supposed she would never find out. 

She doesn’t want to. Not until the war was over.)

-

The troops are assembled for healing. They didn’t lose too much but they were still injured, and the healers - even Dorothea, who forced herself to learn Faith spells - are kept busy. 

Sometimes Edelgard and Dorothea sit by the stones outside, passing some ale between them just to relax before Edelgard loses sleep over several administrative papers and plans. Somehow a few years after losing Byleth was still difficult for all of them. 

“Do you ever think it’s odd Mercedes joined us?” Edelgard asks. Her hair is down and she feels comfortable to slump her shoulders a little bit around Dorothea, who leans back on her hands. Their feet touch the waters of the pond - the cool water almost holy against their tired soles. 

“Not really,” Dorothea replies. “The Crest system screwed her over. As it did with everyone. Why do you ask?” 

Edelgard shrugs. “Sometimes I think about what she sees in our rebellion that she goes against the very own Church that raised her.” 

_The church is fallible, just as we humans who make it up are_. 

“Something about how this was what the Goddess would have wanted,” Dorothea says, offhandedly, trying to remember. “I have an excellent idea. Why don’t you ask her yourself?” 

When Edelgard scoffs at the suggestion, Dorothea splashes some water on her. “Do you think that’s stupid? You’d be surprised by the results. I can vouch for it.” 

“Alright, fine, you got me,” concedes Edelgard. Something she loved about Dorothea is that on good nights like this, the weight of the war on both their shoulders doesn’t feel too burdensome. “Perhaps I will.”

“That’s the spirit. You’re on track to having more effective small-scale interpersonal skills, Edie.” 

It’s Edelgard’s turn to splash some water on Mittelfrank’s primadonna.

-

Edelgard is a woman of her word, and curiosity was getting the best of her. 

After a particularly rough battle, she had a few wounds that can afford being treated last as she insists much to Hubert’s dismay. By the time everyone is done, the two of them remain, in a way that has been occurring quite often. 

In the mess hall. In the cathedral. After-battles like this, and pre-battles where Mercedes was always nearby. 

Now, Mercedes tends to the gash on Edelgard’s arm to finish the job. She makes idle chat that calms the storm inside Edelgard, even only for the moments they’re together. Edelgard supposes its Mercedes’ topnotch bedside manners. 

When the conversation lulls, Edelgard takes her chance. “Mercedes. If you don’t mind my asking… why did you join this rebellion?” 

If Mercedes is taken aback by the abrupt question, she doesn’t show it. “Well, I believe in the fight,” she says, smiling up at Edelgard. “And I believe in you. I hope that would be a sufficient explanation for you.” 

Somehow that soothes one storm inside her but Edelgard feels another stirring, and she feels it in the pit of her stomach instead of underneath her ribcage.

(“If I didn’t know any better, I think you like her, Edie,” Dorothea had teased one evening. 

Edelgard was too flustered to even answer.) 

“It is,” she says, and it’s the truth. Edelgard knew about what her family had gone through. It’s enough, but the mystery lies in the flush of her entire body when Mercedes stands after healing her, kissing Edelgard’s forehead with utter reverence. 

-

“Can’t sleep again?” 

Edelgard laughs. “I’m afraid I’ve become so terribly predictable to you, Mercedes.” 

Mercedes laughs, sitting closely to Edelgard. Suddenly the chill of the night air is expelled in a matter of seconds. “You? Never.” 

Conversation with her is so easy, in a way that it never is with other people who weren’t the Black Eagles. People feared her, and sometimes it has its pay-offs but on evenings such as this, after they’ve lost too many people at this point despite Byleth returning. 

The burden is something she’s accepted, but it doesn’t make it any less heavy.

Somehow, being with Mercedes feels like the rocks on her shoulders were less heavy. As long as they were together. 

The tension between them is so thick now, as if there were so many things to be said. 

They’ll face Rhea in two days. While there were no regrets to be had, there were also things that should not be promised. 

What has been floating around in Edelgard’s mind, crowded with other matters of grave importance in relation to the empire, is somehow both. 

“Mercedes,” Edelgard says, to which Mercedes replies with an attentive ‘hm?’. “If we succeed… I have something to ask of you.”

A wedding proposal may be too foolhardy, but perhaps it would be more realistic to promise to know each other deeper and outside the throes and perils of war. 

Kind, understanding Mercedes only nods. Her hand finds Edelgard’s on the pew of the cathedral, and the silence that settles over them is something that Edelgard desperately needs. 

-

“I made an enemy of the church,” Edelgard says, attempting to strike Rhea down. “But not of the faith.” 

She has never spoken truer words. She remembers everything that has led to this moment. The anger. The anguish. The drive to change the landscape and dismantling the social structures that have hurt her, her family, her friends. 

She remembers Mercedes, and all their conversations. Even if she didn’t make it after this entire ordeal, at least she knows she had done her part to reform the Church for believers who knew the church could be better. 

Aymr makes contact with the scales of the divine beast, and the light brought by the bringer of dawn is so blinding. 

-

Fhirdiad burns around them and around the body of the divine beast. Byleth looks up at her, the light in her eyes awake. She looks around and seeks her friends, seeks Mercedes, seeks the dawn of the new world arriving. 

“We did it,” she says, with unbelief. “We did it.” 

_Finally._

-

“Do you wish to marry her?” Byleth asks, out of the blue, when the rest of the Black Eagle Strike Force were dismissed. Mercedes had lingered to speak with Edelgard for a bit, all smiling and lovely, asking about the humble celebration of their victory. 

The professor was always someone who would watch from the sidelines, observing everyone. For her proclaimed lack of social skills, she surely was excellent at picking up the nuances of these things externally from other people.

There was a light in her eyes that wasn’t there before. Edelgard likes it on her. 

Edelgard chuckles, trying not to blush as she watches Mercedes walk away. “In the near future, perhaps, if she’ll have me.” 

Byleth nods sagely, understanding. Edelgard had not wished to run headfirst into these things, but the ring her father had given lay in a box with the rest of her belongings.

“At first I thought it was an odd match, you two are very different with your approaches. But they do say opposites attract,” their professor taps her chin in thought. “In retrospect, I do think you are more alike than you think.” 

Edelgard thinks back to their conversations about the system. About the church. About their shared love for pastries and sweets that sometimes Mercedes procures from the off-city bakeries whenever Edelgard needed it. 

They were more alike as they were different, and the warmth that blooms in Edelgard gives her some sort of reverent courage. 

-

Edelgard, once again, is a woman of her word. She had asked Mercedes if getting to know each other was in order, now that war no longer loomed above their heads like a grey cloud. 

Of course, Mercedes gives her a very ecstatic yes. Of course, Mercedes kisses her sweetly in the Goddess tower, the best kiss of Edelgard’s life. 

She isn’t surprised when their kisses do get longer, and that Edelgard finds herself pushed into the pillows of her bed, kissed silly by Mercedes, their bodies pressed so close together. 

Alas, their encounters are always cut short by their duties. Edelgard, with pressing matters in relation to the facilitation of the new order of things. Mercedes, with establishing a more progressive church now named after the Goddess - and no longer the self-preserving saint that Seiros truly was. 

Interrupted they were by things with impeccable timing, often with Edelgard’s hands under Mercedes’ skirt, or Mercedes pushing Edelgard against the doors of her personal quarters. These blasted interruptions were already fanning the flames of her temper, and it’s made worse by Mercedes’ passing touch when they meet each other. Made worse by the absolutely filthy way Mercedes looks at her in the war room. 

Mercedes is a holy woman, yes, but she was also an incredible tease. 

It draws on for two more weeks until something inside Edelgard finally snaps. She pencils a note to be given to Hubert to not disturb her and Mercedes for the night if it can wait until the morning. 

During supper with their friends, Edelgard has never been so glad to have sent that note to Hubert, as under the table, Mercedes slides her foot against Edelgard’s leg. Slides her hand on Edelgard’s thigh, rubbing and squeezing. Acts as if she isn’t driving Edelgard insane, engaged in conversation with Caspar who has a half masticated cow in his mouth. 

The night passes by slowly, and at one point Edelgard stands, her hands on the table. “Excuse me, dear friends,” Edelgard announces, hopes to whatever powerful being is up there watching them right now that no one will notice the blush crawling up her neck and the incredibly smug expression Mercedes isn’t even hiding. “I will retire quite early tonight. I have an early day tomorrow.”

Despite everyone else’s complaints that Edelgard possessed the sleeping habits of either an adolescent or an elderly woman, she still leaves, her heart pounding her chest with anticipation that her beloved will stay for a bit and then leave to follow her to her chambers.

A strange sort of satisfaction comes from knowing that even if neither of them said it, they know what will come down tonight.

“If I finally cross the line to insanity it will be entirely—” Edelgard is interrupted by Mercedes’ mouth, her tongue moving past the seam of her lips. “Entirely your fault.” 

Mercedes only laughs, laughs, even more, when she pulls away to press hot, open-mouthed kisses to Edelgard’s throat, Edelgard follows her face, wanting more kisses despite the knowledge that a little bit more may make her heart give out already. “You like it,” Mercedes replies, her tongue licking a stripe up the column of Edelgard’s neck. “Don’t you, Edelgard?”

She does. Oh, how Edelgard loved it. 

Mercedes nudges her closer to the bed until her knees are backed into the mattress. She doesn’t sit because Mercedes doesn’t ask her to, and when Edelgard breaks apart from their kisses, Edelgard looks up at Mercedes to see her face illuminated by the candles of her quarters.

She looked so ethereal. Not of this earth. “You can touch, Edelgard,” Mercedes tells her, her hands on Edelgard’s shoulders. “You can take off my clothes.” 

So Edelgard does as she’s told. She undoes the buttons with the utmost care, taking off each piece of clothing with reverence even if she drops it onto the floor unceremoniously. Edelgard takes off her shawl, unlaces Mercedes’ top, and kisses every inch of skin.

She doesn’t know where this reverence is coming from. She doesn’t know why it overtakes her that her scarred, calloused hands touch Mercedes like this. As if she was unworthy. As if she was something holy.

Mercedes seems to love it. Loves the way Edelgard kisses whatever is revealed by the clothing. Loves the way that Edelgard is determined to not let any patch of skin go unkissed. Time slows and it feels like years have passed between them until Mercedes is in her smallclothes. 

Her skin is far from perfect. There were pockmarks, scars, patches of uneven color. But Edelgard loves it all the same, presses her tongue to soothe her bites, runs her hands on her thighs, her chest - (oh, her chest, which Edelgard would rather chew glass than admit she has stared at), her stomach, and her glorious back with parallel scars on the blades of her shoulders. 

She remembers the incident. Some mages from the Kingdom had struck her with lightning from the back, and it had sent everyone into a panic when Mercedes wasn’t moving. Marianne, a healer with just as much talent, had been the one to save her. 

Mercedes must have noticed her running her hands through it. Her hand tilts Edelgard’s chin upwards. “It’s over now, Edelgard,” she soothes and kisses her for good measure. “You needn’t worry about that.” 

Edelgard blushes, feeling caught, but she laughs softly. She pulls Mercedes onto the bed, letting her climb on top of her. Her short hair sways with the movement, and Edelgard tucks some of it behind her ear. 

“Do you wish to be treated like a goddess, Mercedes?” Edelgard asks, cupping Mercedes’ cheek in her hand. 

She leans into it, and oh God, if Edelgard wasn’t aroused out of her mind these past few weeks leading up to this moment, she definitely is now - because Mercedes takes the finger Edelgard has on her lips in her mouth, her tongue swiping cleverly on the digit. It sends thunder right shooting down her spine, and wetness between her legs when Mercedes’ tongue finds the space where her fingers meet. 

Mercedes releases it with a pop after a few excruciating moments, and she looks up at Edelgard with a charming but downright filthy smile. “Only by you.” 

She is so beautiful and good that maybe Edelgard isn’t worthy. 

_Grace is not earned,_ she remembers. _It is given._

When Mercedes kisses her - Edelgard, undeserving and having done everything she has in the past - she finally understands. 

With one swift movement, Edelgard rolls them over until she’s straddling Mercedes’ hips. Her hair curtains them from the rest of the world as if this moment was a secret. As if this moment was a confession booth at the cathedral. 

She situates her leg between Mercedes’ legs and is met with wetness. Edelgard lets out a sigh at the contact, and Mercedes responds with a high-pitched moan stuck in her throat. 

“Let me take care of you,” Edelgard says into Mercedes’ ear, taking her lobe between her teeth and nibbling. Mercedes’ nails dig into the skin of her scarred back, and for once in her life, Edelgard isn’t afraid of someone seeing her. It’s nothing that Mercedes hasn’t seen before. Nothing that Mercedes didn’t know about. 

Her hands find purchase on her breasts, rolling the pert nipple between her fingers. Edelgard moves to kiss the tight, dusty-pink skin, her tongue on the bud. There’s a hand on her hair, and Edelgard listens attentively to the sounds Mercedes makes when she swipes her tongue and pays special attention to them. 

“That feels so splendid, Edelgard,” Mercedes tells her, fisting some of Edelgard’s hair in her hand. “So, so good.” 

At one point Mercedes moves her head away, laughing, her blush spreading to her chest. Several marks line Edelgard’s path of worship, dark and round as if they were gems that lined the saints’ statues. 

It looks good on Mercedes, and Edelgard gives her more of the marks, her mouth sometimes a whisper or sometimes hot and searing and with a little teeth. Her thighs were not any different, and when Edelgard settles between her legs, she takes her time to kiss around the area where Mercedes’ is wet, so wet she’s leaking on to the sheets. 

Mercedes squirms in her touch, hand in her hair, trying to get closer - trying to find release. 

If she wishes it, she shall receive. 

The first taste of Mercedes was no other. Edelgard alternates between her tongue on the bud and into the silky velvet of inside Mercedes. Slow, broad strokes alternating with her tongue flexed to focus on the bud and around it. Mercedes receives it well, gets so wet Edelgard’s chin is coated with her wetness, and if Edelgard had not been tasked to do what she had to do then she would spend the rest of her life on her knees, eating Mercedes out the way she is. 

The grip Mercedes has on her hair is almost unholy, mirroring the way Edelgard holds on to her thighs. She’s close, because her legs start to close around Edelgard’s head, holding her there. She’s close because she tells Edelgard so, reciting her name like a litany. Like a spell. 

Edelgard doesn’t know how she makes ‘ _fuck me, Edelgard, you feel so good inside me_ ’ sound like a prayer, but Mercedes does and somehow it makes Edelgard want to come right now with her clothes on, without anyone touching her just yet.

Watching her from between her legs Edelgard looks up, looks past the curve of Mercedes’ stomach, up the column of her neck working the sounds of her pleasure, worsening the ache between Edelgard’s legs. Mercedes’ face, contorted in pleasure, the flickering light the candles cast on her face dancing on her skin. 

Edelgard has never been religious or faithful but this is the closest she’ll ever get to the experience of something eternal, of something beyond this. Of the grace she probably doesn’t deserve.

When Mercedes comes, her back arches against the bed, and it’s beautiful - like the arches of the cathedral, bowed and perfect. Edelgard can’t look away, can’t stop eating her out even if her jaw aches. 

She draws out the orgasm, lets Mercedes ride it on her tongue, lets her settle down even if the fist on her hair had not stopped gripping it, not even when Mercedes drags her up - as unceremoniously as she can - to kiss Edelgard, tasting her come in her mouth, on her lips, and on her chin.

“That was amazing,” she mumbles into Edelgard’s lips. “Goddess, you felt so good.” 

Before Edelgard can even answer, Mercedes finds the button of her casual wear, asking permission. She nods, ready to let Mercedes see her this way. See her in this light. See her in this kind of intimacy. 

Mercedes reciprocates with the same kind of gentleness, the same kind of tenderness. She returns the sweet kisses to every bit of skin, except this time she pays attention to the scars and kisses them as if they’d ever go away. 

Her hand tucks itself into Edelgard’s undergarments and between her legs, and she touches her with attentiveness and dexterity, her calloused fingers so tender but also so rough - rubbing circles that send electricity up and down Edelgard’s spine. 

Mercedes is an attentive lover and Edelgard isn’t surprised when she whispers, “is this okay?”, or “do you feel good?” The answer is always a nod. The answer is a moan. The answer is an open-mouthed kiss with her tongue caressing her own. 

When Edelgard comes, she moans into Mercedes’ mouth - clutching her back as her life depended on it as her world contracted and expanded, her walls clenching on Mercedes’ fingers as they helped her ride it out. 

She comes down, only barely, until Mercedes makes her come again that Edelgard sees darkness then a bright light that vanishes when she comes down again, with soothing kisses pressed to her cheek. 

Her breath comes in shallow pants, and Edelgard laughs, already basking in the afterglow of it all. Mercedes is one step ahead of her, having basked in it already. She’s positively glowing, and the halo around her blonde head makes Edelgard realize that this is most likely what devout people feel around religious iconography. 

Still, Edelgard feels undeserving, but that doesn’t stop her from kissing her. It doesn’t stop her from tucking a stray strand of hair behind Mercedes’ ear. 

“You know, for someone who is not at all faithful, you certainly are good at making people feel worshipped,” her lover teases, but not without a kiss to compensate. 

Edelgard, for the ninth time that night, blushes with Mercedes’ words spoken so genuinely and adoringly. She can only hope to make her feel as such. “Ah, yes, well,” she says, looking everywhere but the woman in her arms. “You bring it out in me.” 

“Do I?”

“You do. I’m not used to it.”

Mercedes kisses her again, the heady taste of each other warming Edelgard’s stomach again. “Well, we’re just going to keep doing it until you are.” 

All her life, any form of worship she had been averse to. Until now, with the way that Mercedes looks at her, the way that Mercedes loves her. 

She had been averse to any form of worship her whole life, but when Mercedes kisses her again, Edelgard wonders briefly why people come to cathedrals to praise and to worship. 

With Mercedes’ head between her legs, the light casting a halo on the crown of it, Edelgard understands.


End file.
